| Abstract: Hadrontherapy involves the use of hadron beams (proton and carbon ions) to treat cancer. It is considered today the most accurate radiotherapy technique and the most effective for certain radio-resistant tumours. However, this modern technique is complex and requires, besides the proper equipment, a Treatment Planning System (TPS) adapted to the unique physical and radiobiological properties of heavy ions. It is well known, for example, that heavy ions have an increased radiobiological effectiveness compared to photons and electrons. Therefore, the TPSs used in conventional radiotherapy cannot be directly used in hadrontherapy, one of the most important radiobiological tasks of a TPS for protons and carbon ions consisting in the implementation of radiobiological models describing, as accurate as possible, the biological effects of these particles in different tissues. The most used radiobiological models in this field are the Local Effect Model (LEM), developed by the GSI biophysics group (Darmstadt, Germany) and the Microdosimetric Kinetic Model (MKM) adopted at NIRS (National Institute for Radiological Science, Japan). The purpose of this work is to investigate some radiobiological properties of proton and carbon ions using a calculation code, practically an online interface, implemented by INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) and I-SEE (Internet – Simulation, Evaluation, Envision) (http://totlxl.to.infn.it/mediawiki/index.php/LEM-Online). Have been evaluated and plotted the survival curves and relative biological effectiveness as a function of dose for proton and carbon ions at different energies in different cell lines on the bases of LEM and MKM models contained in this code. Some specific parameters have been extracted and compared, not only for proton and carbon ions, but also for other heavy ions such as He, Li, Be, B, N and O. |
